I really appreciate the script, but I have one problem. After setting everything up, I go to select a program to be launched and the program is opened in the background instead of taking focus away from XBMC.

new to xbmc (windows) and want to run apps with it.
I put Launcher here C:\Program Files\XBMC\plugins\Program directory\Launcher
But when in xbmc i try and open program plugins it comes up REMOTE SHARE
can not connect to network server. My network is fine and can get movie info ect what am i doing wrong

Hahaha okay not so funny. I did this with the Aeon Project skin, but that skin is very messy so I don't think that is the *normal way of doing it. What I had to do was find where in the .xml code of my skin was the code/link for the menu items. Once you find that you can modify a working menu item to go wherever you want, like a favorite or Source location.

I think there is more detailed information in the wiki on doing this. When I get more time I will retrace my steps and jot down how I did it for the Aeon skin which might help or not.

no idea if this is possible, but it would rock if
the launcher would set xbmc into window-mode
before launching the application and set it back to
fullscreenmode when the launched program is quit.

the reason is, that almost every application can't open
in fullscreenmode when xbmc is already in fullcreen.
(in fact xbmc does switch to windowmode this way too,
but too late - means after the applications has launched
or after it quits, one of both)
it works fine when you switch xbmc to window
before launching.